Bay Area DF Social

November 9, 1996

This is the first chapter in a new book of darkfriend socials for me.
In the past, I've written about my experiences with the DC Darkfriends,
but now I live in California. Bay Area Socials will be my usual
stomping ground for the next few years at least.

Hawk and I have been in Sunnyvale, California, for a month now, so of
course it was time to have a Darkfriend housewarming party. We hosted
the gathering at our apartment in Sunnyvale, California on Saturday,
November 9, 1996. Attending were Hawk and myself (of course), Rick Moen,
Scottina B. Good, Julie Kangas, Emma Pease, and John Caddedu. Don
Harlow and brood were supposed to come, but Don got sick and
cancelled. Hohn Cho was supposed to come, but got bogus and decided
to spend the weekend working instead of partying. Hawk says he really
needs to get a life. We expected Ken Kofmann and Tony Zbaraschuck,
but neither of them came. Perhaps they were lost somewhere around the
Clarendon Metro Stop?

We had planned to get pizza delivered, but several of our guests
brought food. Scottina brought what seemed like a grocery store.
Emma brought some lovely flowers. Julie brough $37 of beer. Rick
brought wine and two jars of dead fish. Julie screamed when she saw
them. Hawk tried to warn him against the dead fish, but he didn't
listen. John brought a bottle of Jordan wine. Hawk and I provided
cookies, crackers, chips, cheese, and salsa.

Did we all gain a few pounds, or what?

This was Scottina's first social, but she was already steeped in the lore.
She read all the summaries of previous socials I have on the Web, so
she was able to joke along about Novak groupies, needing two tables,
$37 of beer, etc. She even knew to ask who Roy is. It felt so _good_
to know that someone actually reads the stuff I archive.

Scottina complained about living in Fallon, Nevada. Her biggest gripe
is that men are always trying to pick her up. She's found a line that
works when men give her their pick-up lines: "I'm cold and frigid. Go
away," she says. The guys are so desperate that she finds herself
repeating "Cold and frigid go away" like a mantra in bars, on the streets,
in the grocery stores, everywhere. What I want to know is what kind of
pick-up lines you hear in grocery stores. I always thought, "You
shouldn't stand next to the ice cream, baby. You're so hot you could
melt all this frozen food," was a really corny line. {+1 pt for the
quote}

We really didn't discuss the books at all. Scottina asked if it were
normal to talk about everything but Jordan. "It seems we're doing
pretty well," Emma replied. Someone else said, "I don't like to read
alt.fan.robert-jordan. They talk about the books too much."

We discussed the English royal family and Emma's British accent.
Emma considers her own accent odd, given that she grew up in New Jersey.

In the obligatory Novak discussion someone -- whose name is being
withheld for his/her safety -- opined that Novak is like Dogbert.
The glasses, the general demeanor, etc....

[John Novak responds: "Look, Dogbert gets paid obnoxious amounts of
money for consulting and contracting. Dogbert exists to take
advantage fo the foolish, the stupid, the thoughtless, and the
clue-deprived. Dogbert is going to Take Over the World. To an
extent, I can empathize with Dogbert."]

Here are some oddball quotes I found written down on scraps of paper:

"He slobbers over Tim Curry. How can you hate him?"

"I think I want another cookie, but I shouldn't have one."
"I'll smack you around if you have one. How about that?"
"If the cookies are good enough, they're worth being smacked around for."

"You get 40 lashes with Dylan's badger."
"Please, not that!"
"Well, it's not a strong badger because of the workout it always gets."
"It would fall apart with a woman -- it's never seen one before."

"Where are the quotes from Emma and Rick?"
"Well, the fun happened after they left."

Some other weird stuff:

Julie referred to Rick as a "barbarian" all night because he was
eating fish.

Julie has a blow-up doll. It's a fish.

Julie and Scottina, in the room by themselves, managed to "break" our
whip. What were they doing? Julie says she broke the whip when she
was discussing men.